Judicial Capture
The Judicial Capture capture lane traces 645 verified events documenting this mechanism of institutional capture.
| Date | Event | Lanes | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1980-06-20 | Powell creates Central Hudson test expanding corporate commercial speech rights Lewis F. Powell Jr. · Supreme Court of the United States · Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corporation · New York Public Service Commission | confirmed | |
| 1980-03-24 | U.S. Backs El Salvador Death Squad Government Through 12-Year Civil War Ronald Reagan · Roberto D'Aubuisson · Oscar Romero | confirmed | |
| 1979-01-01 | Supreme Court Adopts Bork's "Consumer Welfare Standard," Transforming Antitrust Law U.S. Supreme Court · Robert Bork | confirmed | |
| 1979-01-01 | Wage Stagnation Era Begins: Productivity-Pay Gap Opens as Union Power Collapses American workers · Corporate management · Federal Reserve · Business Roundtable | confirmed | |
| 1978-04-26 | Powell delivers Bellotti decision establishing corporate First Amendment rights Lewis F. Powell Jr. · Supreme Court of the United States · First National Bank of Boston · Francis X. Bellotti · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1978-03-06 | DOJ Returns to Court: Trump Violated 1975 Discrimination Settlement Donald Trump · Fred Trump · Roy Cohn | confirmed | |
| 1978-01-01 | Robert Bork Publishes "The Antitrust Paradox," Revolutionizing Corporate Power Robert Bork · Aaron Director · University of Chicago · Chicago School of Economics | confirmed | |
| 1977-06-23 | Supreme Court Decides GTE Sylvania, First Major Chicago School Antitrust Victory U.S. Supreme Court · Aaron Director · Chicago School of Economics | confirmed | |
| 1976-12-31 | Corporate PAC Explosion: 433 New Corporate PACs Formed in Post-Buckley Era Corporate America · Business Roundtable · U.S. Chamber of Commerce · Federal Election Commission | confirmed | |
| 1976-05-24 | Powell Expands Corporate Speech Rights in Virginia State Board of Pharmacy Decision Lewis F. Powell Jr. · William Brennan · Warren Burger · Byron White · +2 | confirmed | |
| 1976-01-30 | Supreme Court Rules Money Is Speech in Buckley v. Valeo U.S. Supreme Court · Lewis F. Powell Jr. · James Buckley · Eugene McCarthy · +2 | confirmed | |
| 1975-06-10 | Trump Settles Housing Discrimination Case Without Admitting Guilt Donald Trump · Fred Trump · Roy Cohn | confirmed | |
| 1974-09-08 | Ford Issues Full Pardon to Nixon for All Watergate Crimes, Ensures No Criminal Accountability Gerald Ford · Richard Nixon | confirmed | |
| 1974-08-05 | Nixon Releases Smoking Gun Tape Under Supreme Court Order, Political Support Collapses Completely Richard Nixon · H.R. Haldeman · House Judiciary Committee · Republican Party | confirmed | |
| 1974-07-27 | House Judiciary Committee Approves Three Articles of Impeachment Against President Nixon House Judiciary Committee · Peter Rodino · Robert McClory · Richard Nixon | confirmed | |
| 1974-07-25 | Milliken v. Bradley - Supreme Court Blocks Cross-District School Desegregation, Entrenches White Flight Chief Justice Warren Burger · Justice Thurgood Marshall · U.S. Supreme Court · NAACP Legal Defense Fund · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1974-07-24 | Supreme Court Rules 8-0 in United States v. Nixon: President Must Surrender Tapes U.S. Supreme Court · Warren Burger · Richard Nixon · Leon Jaworski · +3 | confirmed | |
| 1974-06-01 | Nixon Executive-Privilege Theory (1973-74) Establishes Doctrinal Infrastructure Cited by Every Subsequent Presidency Richard Nixon · Archibald Cox · Leon Jaworski · John Dean · +2 | confirmed | |
| 1973-12-28 | Endangered Species Act Signed, Industry Groups Immediately Begin Weakening Campaign Richard Nixon · American Mining Congress · National Forest Products Association · American Farm Bureau Federation · +2 | confirmed | |
| 1973-11-01 | Leon Jaworski Appointed as Special Prosecutor to Replace Fired Archibald Cox Leon Jaworski · Robert Bork · Richard Nixon · Archibald Cox | confirmed | |
| 1973-10-15 | DOJ Sues Trump and Father for Systemic Housing Discrimination Donald Trump · Fred Trump · Roy Cohn | confirmed | |
| 1973-07-16 | Alexander Butterfield Reveals Nixon White House Secret Taping System in Bombshell Testimony Alexander Butterfield · Richard Nixon · H.R. Haldeman · Donald Sanders · +2 | confirmed | |
| 1973-03-21 | San Antonio v. Rodriguez - Supreme Court Upholds Property Tax School Funding, Entrenches Inequality Justice Lewis Powell · Justice Thurgood Marshall · Demetrio Rodriguez · Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1973-01-22 | Supreme Court Decides Roe v. Wade, Triggering Conservative Backlash and Mobilization U.S. Supreme Court · Nellie Gray | confirmed | |
| 1973-01-01 | R.J. Rushdoony Publishes "The Institutes of Biblical Law": Intellectual Foundation for Christian Dominionism Rousas John Rushdoony · Gary North · Chalcedon Foundation | confirmed | |
| 1972-09-28 | Powell Memo Leaked to Public, Exposing Corporate Institutional Capture Blueprint Jack Anderson · Lewis F. Powell Jr. · U.S. Chamber of Commerce | confirmed | |
| 1972-06-23 | Smoking Gun Tape: Nixon Orders CIA to Block FBI Watergate Investigation Richard Nixon · H.R. Haldeman · Vernon Walters · L. Patrick Gray · +2 | confirmed | |
| 1972-01-07 | Lewis Powell Sworn in as Supreme Court Justice, Begins Implementing Corporate Blueprint Lewis F. Powell Jr. · Richard Nixon · U.S. Supreme Court · U.S. Senate | confirmed | |
| 1971-10-22 | Nixon Nominates Lewis Powell to Supreme Court Two Months After Corporate Blueprint Memo Richard Nixon · Lewis F. Powell Jr. · John Mitchell · U.S. Chamber of Commerce · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1971-10-21 | Nixon nominates Lewis Powell to Supreme Court two months after corporate blueprint memo Richard Nixon · Lewis F. Powell Jr. · U.S. Senate · William H. Rehnquist | confirmed | |
| 1971-08-23 | Lewis Powell Writes Landmark Memo Blueprinting Corporate Institutional Capture Strategy Lewis F. Powell Jr. · Eugene B. Sydnor Jr. · U.S. Chamber of Commerce · Nixon Administration | confirmed | |
| 1968-06-17 | Supreme Court Rules 1866 Civil Rights Act Bans Private Housing Discrimination U.S. Supreme Court · Joseph Lee Jones · Alfred H. Mayer Company | confirmed | |
| 1966-08-09 | Dorothy Gautreaux Lawsuit Challenges Chicago Public Housing Segregation Dorothy Gautreaux · Chicago Housing Authority · American Civil Liberties Union · U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development | confirmed | |
| 1966-06-13 | Miranda v. Arizona Decision Requiring Rights Warnings Sparks Law Enforcement Backlash and Conservative Law-and-Order Politics U.S. Supreme Court · Chief Justice Earl Warren · Richard Nixon · Law enforcement organizations | confirmed | |
| 1965-10-03 | Immigration and Nationality Act Abolishes National Origins Quota System After Defeating Conservative Opposition President Lyndon B. Johnson · Senator Philip Hart · Representative Emanuel Celler · Senator James Eastland · +2 | confirmed | |
| 1965-08-06 | Voting Rights Act Signed After Selma Bloody Sunday Defeats Southern Legislative Resistance President Lyndon B. Johnson · Martin Luther King Jr. · John Lewis · Southern Democratic Senators · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1964-09-01 | Segregation Academies Proliferate as White Families Flee Integrated Public Schools With Public Subsidies White Citizens' Councils · Southern state legislatures · Jerry Falwell Sr. · Private school founders | confirmed | |
| 1964-07-02 | Civil Rights Act of 1964 Passes After Filibuster Defeats Corporate Southern Resistance President Lyndon B. Johnson · Southern Democratic Senators · Richard Russell · Strom Thurmond · +2 | confirmed | |
| 1963-05-03 | Bull Connor Orders Fire Hoses and Police Dogs Against Children in Birmingham Campaign Bull Connor · Martin Luther King Jr. · James Bevel · Birmingham Police · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1961-05-14 | Freedom Riders Firebombed in Anniston as Police Allow KKK Attack Without Intervention Congress of Racial Equality · Bull Connor · Robert Kennedy · Ku Klux Klan · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1960-05-06 | Civil Rights Act of 1960: Voting Referees and Criminal Penalties Still Prove Inadequate Against Southern Resistance Dwight D. Eisenhower · U.S. Congress · Lyndon B. Johnson · Southern Democrats · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1959-06-26 | Prince Edward County Virginia Closes Entire Public School System for Five Years Rather Than Integrate Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors · Virginia General Assembly · Harry Byrd | confirmed | |
| 1959-06-02 | Prince Edward County Virginia Closes All Public Schools for Five Years Rather Than Integrate Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors · Prince Edward County School Board · Virginia political establishment | confirmed | |
| 1957-09-09 | Civil Rights Act of 1957: First Federal Voting Rights Law Since Reconstruction Passes Despite Southern Filibuster Dwight D. Eisenhower · Lyndon B. Johnson · Strom Thurmond · Richard Russell · +2 | confirmed | |
| 1956-09-21 | Virginia Enacts Massive Resistance Laws Authorizing School Closures to Prevent Integration Harry F. Byrd · Thomas Bahnson Stanley · Virginia General Assembly · Byrd Organization | confirmed | |
| 1956-03-12 | Southern Manifesto Signed by 101 Congressmen Pledging Resistance to School Integration Walter F. George · Harry F. Byrd · Strom Thurmond · 19 U.S. Senators · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1955-12-01 | Rosa Parks Arrested for Refusing to Give Up Bus Seat Sparking Montgomery Bus Boycott Rosa Parks · Martin Luther King Jr. · Montgomery Improvement Association · E.D. Nixon · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1955-05-31 | Brown II Orders Desegregation with "All Deliberate Speed," Enabling Decade of Resistance Earl Warren · U.S. Supreme Court · NAACP Legal Defense Fund · Thurgood Marshall · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1954-05-17 | Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court Decision Declares School Segregation Unconstitutional Earl Warren · Thurgood Marshall · NAACP Legal Defense Fund · U.S. Supreme Court | confirmed | |
| 1953-06-19 | Julius and Ethel Rosenberg Executed at Sing Sing, Cold War's Most Controversial Death Penalty Case Julius Rosenberg · Ethel Rosenberg · Roy Cohn · Irving Saypol · +4 | confirmed | |
| 1952-06-02 | Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer: Supreme Court Strikes Steel Seizure; Jackson Concurrence Becomes Canonical Executive-Power Framework U.S. Supreme Court · Hugo Black · Robert H. Jackson · Felix Frankfurter · +4 | confirmed | |
| 1951-06-04 | Dennis v. United States Supreme Court Upholds Smith Act Convictions, Criminalizes Political Advocacy Fred Vinson · U.S. Supreme Court · Eugene Dennis · Communist Party USA · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1950-08-01 | State Department Revokes Paul Robeson Passport for Political Views and Soviet Support Paul Robeson · State Department · J. Edgar Hoover · Federal Bureau of Investigation | confirmed | |
| 1947-10-01 | Levittown Opens as America's First Suburb With Explicit Whites-Only Policy William Levitt · Levitt & Sons · Federal Housing Administration · Veterans Administration | confirmed | |
| 1944-12-18 | Korematsu v. United States - Supreme Court Upholds Japanese Internment U.S. Supreme Court · Fred Korematsu · Hugo Black · Robert Jackson · +3 | confirmed | |
| 1944-04-03 | Smith v. Allwright: Supreme Court Strikes Down White Primaries, Opening Democratic Party to Black Voters U.S. Supreme Court · Stanley Reed · Thurgood Marshall · NAACP Legal Defense Fund · +2 | confirmed | |
| 1942-07-02 | FDR Proclamation 2561 Creates Military Tribunal for Nazi Saboteurs; Ex parte Quirin Becomes Cited Precedent for Post-9/11 Detention Franklin D. Roosevelt · U.S. Supreme Court · Harlan F. Stone · Francis Biddle · +2 | confirmed | |
| 1939-08-02 | Hatch Act Restricts Federal Workers' Political Activity After Allegations of WPA Election Interference Carl Hatch · Franklin D. Roosevelt · U.S. Congress · Works Progress Administration · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1939-02-27 | Supreme Court Rules in NLRB v. Fansteel That Sit-Down Strikers Can Be Lawfully Fired Despite Employer Violations Supreme Court of the United States · National Labor Relations Board · Fansteel Metallurgical Corporation · organized labor · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1937-07-22 | Senate Defeats FDR Court-Packing Plan 70-22, Handing Roosevelt His Greatest Legislative Defeat U.S. Senate · Franklin D. Roosevelt · Senate Judiciary Committee · Joseph Robinson · +2 | confirmed | |
| 1937-04-12 | NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel - Supreme Court Upholds Wagner Act in Constitutional Revolution Supreme Court of the United States · Charles Evans Hughes · Owen Roberts · Franklin D. Roosevelt · +2 | confirmed | |
| 1937-03-29 | West Coast Hotel v. Parrish - "Switch in Time" Supreme Court Upholds State Minimum Wage Law Supreme Court of the United States · Owen Roberts · Charles Evans Hughes · Franklin D. Roosevelt · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1937-02-05 | FDR Announces Judicial Reorganization Plan to Add Up to Six Supreme Court Justices, Triggering Court-Packing Crisis Franklin D. Roosevelt · Supreme Court of the United States · John Nance Garner · Hatton Sumners · +2 | confirmed | |
| 1937-02-05 | FDR Court-Packing Plan: Executive Assault on Judicial Independence Establishes Permanent Template Franklin D. Roosevelt · Homer Cummings · Burton Wheeler · Henry Ashurst · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1936-12-21 | United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export: Sutherland Invents 'Sole Organ' Doctrine of Presidential Foreign-Affairs Supremacy U.S. Supreme Court · George Sutherland · Franklin D. Roosevelt · Curtiss-Wright Export Corporation · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1936-01-06 | Supreme Court Strikes Down Agricultural Adjustment Act in United States v. Butler, Invalidating Key New Deal Farm Program Supreme Court of the United States · Owen J. Roberts · Harlan Fiske Stone · William M. Butler · +3 | confirmed | |
| 1935-05-27 | "Black Monday" Supreme Court Unanimously Strikes Down National Industrial Recovery Act in Three Anti-New Deal Rulings Supreme Court of the United States · Charles Evans Hughes · Benjamin Cardozo · Harlan Fiske Stone · +2 | confirmed | |
| 1935-05-27 | Humphrey's Executor v. United States: Supreme Court Limits Presidential Removal Power, Establishes Constitutional Predicate for Independent Agencies U.S. Supreme Court · George Sutherland · Franklin D. Roosevelt · William E. Humphrey · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1927-08-23 | Sacco and Vanzetti Executed After Seven Years of Biased Proceedings Nicola Sacco · Bartolomeo Vanzetti · Alvin Fuller · A. Lawrence Lowell · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1927-05-02 | Supreme Court Endorses Forced Sterilization in Buck v. Bell Eugenics Decision Oliver Wendell Holmes · Carrie Buck · Harry Laughlin · U.S. Supreme Court · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1927-04-11 | Supreme Court Applies Antitrust Law to Union Secondary Boycotts in Bedford Cut Stone George Sutherland · U.S. Supreme Court · Journeymen Stone Cutters Association · Bedford Cut Stone Company | confirmed | |
| 1926-10-25 | Myers v. United States: Taft Court Reads Presidential Removal Power Into Article II, Predicate for Later Unitary-Executive Claims U.S. Supreme Court · William Howard Taft · Woodrow Wilson · Frank S. Myers · +2 | confirmed | |
| 1925-06-08 | Supreme Court Upholds Criminal Anarchy Conviction While Expanding Due Process Edward Sanford · Benjamin Gitlow · U.S. Supreme Court · Oliver Wendell Holmes | confirmed | |
| 1925-05-25 | Supreme Court Reverses Coronado Decision, Opens Unions to Antitrust Liability William Howard Taft · U.S. Supreme Court · United Mine Workers of America · Coronado Coal Company | confirmed | |
| 1925-01-30 | Charles Forbes Convicted of Veterans Bureau Fraud After Nine-Week Trial Charles Forbes · Warren G. Harding · E.H. Mortimer · J.W. Thompson | confirmed | |
| 1923-04-09 | Supreme Court Strikes Down Federal Minimum Wage Law for Women in Adkins Decision George Sutherland · U.S. Supreme Court · Children's Hospital · Willie Lyons | confirmed | |
| 1922-09-01 | Railway Shopcraft Strike Broken by Daugherty Sweeping Injunction Harry Daugherty · Warren G. Harding · Railroad Labor Board | confirmed | |
| 1922-06-05 | Supreme Court Rules Unincorporated Unions Can Be Sued in Coronado Coal Case William Howard Taft · U.S. Supreme Court · United Mine Workers of America · Coronado Coal Company | confirmed | |
| 1922-05-15 | Supreme Court Strikes Down Federal Child Labor Tax as Unconstitutional William Howard Taft · U.S. Supreme Court · U.S. Congress · Drexel Furniture Company | confirmed | |
| 1921-12-19 | Supreme Court Invalidates Arizona Anti-Injunction Law in Truax v. Corrigan William Howard Taft · U.S. Supreme Court · Arizona State Legislature | confirmed | |
| 1921-09-15 | DuPont-GM Consolidation Creates Model of Interlocking Corporate Control Pierre du Pont · Alfred P. Sloan · John J. Raskob · DuPont Company · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1921-01-03 | Supreme Court Guts Clayton Act Labor Protections in Duplex Printing Decision Mahlon Pitney · U.S. Supreme Court · International Association of Machinists · Duplex Printing Press Company | confirmed | |
| 1920-08-23 | Sacco and Vanzetti Arrested in Red Scare Climate of Anti-Immigrant Hysteria Nicola Sacco · Bartolomeo Vanzetti · Frederick Katzmann · Webster Thayer · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1920-03-01 | Supreme Court Dismisses U.S. Steel Antitrust Case, Ruling Size Alone Not Illegal - Enforcement Ends Until 1945 U.S. Supreme Court · Justice Joseph McKenna · Justice Day · U.S. Steel Corporation · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1919-11-10 | Abrams v. United States: Holmes Dissents, Articulates 'Marketplace of Ideas' Free Speech Theory Supreme Court of the United States · Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. · Justice Louis Brandeis · Jacob Abrams | confirmed | |
| 1919-11-07 | Palmer Raids Begin: Attorney General and J. Edgar Hoover Arrest 6,000 in 36 Cities, Deport 249 on "Soviet Ark" A. Mitchell Palmer · J. Edgar Hoover · U.S. Department of Justice · Emma Goldman · +2 | confirmed | |
| 1919-07-27 | Red Summer: Chicago Race Riot Erupts as White Mobs Attack Black Neighborhoods, 38 Killed Chicago Police Department · Irish American athletic clubs · Black Great Migration communities · Governor Frank Lowden · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1919-03-03 | Schenck v. United States: Supreme Court Creates 'Clear and Present Danger' Test, Upholds Espionage Act Convictions Supreme Court of the United States · Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. · Charles Schenck · Socialist Party of America | confirmed | |
| 1918-09-14 | Eugene V. Debs Sentenced to Ten Years for Antiwar Speech, Runs for President from Prison Eugene V. Debs · Socialist Party of America · President Woodrow Wilson · Judge David C. Westenhaver | confirmed | |
| 1918-06-03 | Supreme Court Strikes Down Federal Child Labor Law in Hammer v. Dagenhart U.S. Supreme Court · Justice William R. Day · Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. | confirmed | |
| 1918-05-16 | Sedition Act of 1918 Expands Espionage Act to Criminalize Anti-Government Speech U.S. Congress · President Woodrow Wilson · U.S. Postmaster General | confirmed | |
| 1917-12-10 | Hitchman Coal v. Mitchell: Supreme Court Authorizes Injunctions to Enforce Yellow-Dog Contracts Supreme Court of the United States · Justice Mahlon Pitney · United Mine Workers of America · Hitchman Coal and Coke Company | confirmed | |
| 1917-11-05 | Buchanan v. Warley: Supreme Court Strikes Down Racial Zoning, Property Rights Trump Civil Rights Supreme Court of the United States · NAACP · Moorfield Storey · Louisville, Kentucky | confirmed | |
| 1917-07-12 | Bisbee Deportation: Phelps Dodge and Vigilantes Illegally Deport 1,300 Striking Miners Phelps Dodge Corporation · Walter Douglas · Sheriff Harry Wheeler · Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1917-06-15 | Espionage Act Signed: Wilson Criminalizes Antiwar Speech, Targets IWW Labor Organizers and Socialists President Woodrow Wilson · Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) · Eugene V. Debs · Victor L. Berger · +2 | confirmed | |
| 1915-06-21 | Guinn v. United States: Supreme Court Strikes Down Grandfather Clauses as Fifteenth Amendment Violation U.S. Supreme Court · Chief Justice Edward White · Oklahoma Legislature · NAACP | confirmed | |
| 1913-08-03 | Wheatland Hop Riot: IWW Farmworkers Protest Conditions, Deputies Kill Four, Leaders Framed Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) · Blackie Ford · Herman Suhr · Ralph Durst · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1912-04-18 | Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Mine War: West Virginia Declares Martial Law, Mother Jones Imprisoned United Mine Workers of America · Mary Harris Jones · Governor William Glasscock · Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency · +1 | confirmed | |
| 1911-05-29 | Supreme Court Orders American Tobacco Breakup, Applying Rule of Reason to Tobacco Trust U.S. Supreme Court · Chief Justice Edward White · American Tobacco Company · James Duke | confirmed | |
| 1911-05-15 | Supreme Court Orders Standard Oil Breakup in Landmark Antitrust Decision U.S. Supreme Court · John D. Rockefeller · Standard Oil Company · Chief Justice Edward White | confirmed |